3-foot wide asteroid burns up over Phillipines

A small asteroid discovered on Wednesday harmlessly burned up in Earth’s atmosphere the same day, NASA said.

The asteroid — about 3 feet across — was spotted by astronomers in Arizona and broke apart over the coast of the Philippines hours after the discovery.

The space rock, dubbed 2024 RW1, is only the ninth to have been spotted before its impact.

In 2018, a boulder-size asteroid disintegrated harmlessly over Africa, just hours after its discovery.

It’s only the fourth time scientists have spotted an incoming asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. The previous times were in 2008 and 2014.

Scientists said asteroids around this size hurtle toward Earth about every two weeks without posing any danger.

The asteroid was discovered through the Catalina Sky Survey, which is run by the University of Arizona and funded by NASA.




A security camera captured the fireball caused by a small asteroid burning up in Earth's atmosphere over the Phillipines on Wednesday.  (Photo Allan G. Madelar via AP)